


Misunderstanding eternal

by koijuly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Resurrection, narrative jumps with character's thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:45:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7853077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koijuly/pseuds/koijuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequence of memories; that tell a story; which may or may not; explain a theory to how Harry survives</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misunderstanding eternal

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to SyrupWink and Callum Vlex for beta'ing
> 
> This was written a while ago; and never thought i would post it until i got beta's to check it who found things that were bugging me and fixed them XD

Ron was ducking the green of a killing curse which fizzled before Harry's eyes, Ron blocking his eyesight had given him no chance to move. He sent a stupify in the direction the call of ‘avada kedavra’ had came from and was greeted with the satisfying sound of someone hitting the ground, hard.   
  
“You alright?” Harry asked.   
  
“Yeah.” Ron stood a turned. “I didn't realise you were behind me, good thing it missed you. I don't know what I would have done if he'd killed you.”   
  
“Something stupid, no doubt. Like beat him an inch of his life, because I might have done that if he'd hit you. Promise you won't, if I die on duty can you ensure whoever did it is protected from the backlash of it being me. Promise me.”   
  
“Yeah, promise.”   
  
Harry smiled at the memory. No, not smiled, he had no mouth to do so. No body that he could move. He wasn't sure where he was, or how he got here, or even if he was alive. However he knew it was real and not a dream.   
  
A wind moved him and he floated with it. Though, what he was to float? He was unsure.   
  
“That's the thing Harry.” Hermione lamented. “I can't help you if you won't tell me what happened. Why the sudden interest in why Voldemort couldn't kill you? I thought you said it was the wand, because it was aligned to you.”   
  
“This is pointless Hermione, I can't tell you. It was on duty.”   
  
“So something did happen.”   
  
What had happened? He wasn't sure he remembered anymore, the time when the curse fizzled and he finally decided he needed to know why. Many things had happened since then. But one of them landed him here, in this state. Was he in St. Mungo? He couldn't remember anything past Ron shoving the door open to announce he had a potential lead on the latest death eater copy cat killer.   
  
Harry saw Albus, tears running down his face as he looked down on him. This was new, it wasn't a memory of his son and he felt a sadness that wasn't his own. The person he was in spoke softly trying to cheer up Albus.   
  
“It was quick, clean,” they said. “He didn't suffer. He died doing what he loved, what he believed in.”   
  
“James, he’s dead, what does any of that matter? He’s supposed to be here for us, but he’s gone, he took the train, he made that choice. He left us. Uncle Ron’s still here, Hugo and Rosie think they understand. But dad was unkillable? I thought him immortal. Everyone’ll know. Remember what dad said, James, about the look of sadness he got from so many when first meeting them, that's going to be us.”   
  
“Look Mum’ll arrive soon,” James whispered, clearly trying to divert the tears that were on the verge of falling, “she's getting here as quickly as she can. And uncle Neville is waiting on us, he should understand losing a parent young. Yeah they didn't die but I think it's worse what happened to his parents than gran and grandad. We don't even know what really happened yet.”   
  
“He chose, he came back for Voldemort, but not for us. He could of at least come back as a ghost.”   
  
“You know Ghost are scared of what's next, that they live in twilight. Have you ever seen dad scared? Even when mum was flying off the handle at his recklessness?”   
  
“I know. I know all this. But there wasn't a body, James, just ash and dust and a hallucinating uncle Ron.”   
  
“The air, they modified a stinkbomb with something and Ron couldn't stop talking about Fairies.” Harry faded out, registering that he had used James mouth to talk to Albus, but unsure how, or how to use it to tell them what had happened, or why he'd remembered that fact, because he knew that was what had happened when they arrived on scene.   
  
It was raining hard. Harry was soaked through, apart from his glasses that were water retardant thanks to Hermione. The rain was making him nostalgic as he watched Ginny fly. She had been scouted months ago to play for various teams, much to Ron’s disappointment she turned down the Chudley Cannons. She did a sudden flip and was heading straight down. The practise snitch had finally been spotted. Harry watched, he wasn't sure when this was. He didn't remember the other players, so focused on her at the time that everything else blurred when he tried to look at it. His main thought that he remembered had been wishing to join her.   
  
Snape was telling him off, asking questions Harry now knew the answer to, he watched his younger self stutter through his lack of answers. Then Snape asked the question he still didn't know the answer to. If he got out of this he would ask Hermione as it certainly wasn't part of any potions book hehad learned from during his six years there.   
  
“I'm only repeating what James said, though he doesn't remember saying it.” Harry watched Ginny’s face, distorted with sadness and concern, try to smile.   
  
“They don't know what happened, we have to wait for Ron to regain his senses.” Her voice was tight, and rough. Whoever he was watching from took a step toward her and hugged her. “Where's Lilly? Has she heard?”   
  
“I don't know who she was with.” James whispered, he was in James again.   
  
“Luna, she came round early today to take her nargle hunting. Mating season she said.” Harry added, and felt Ginny stiffen.   
  
“Harry?”   
  
“I know everyone says I look like him, but mum, he's still got height on me.”   
  
“I know son, I know.” She pulled him back to look into his eyes, concern over her face. “I’ll try Luna, she might know.”   
  
“She’s mad.”   
  
“No, she's just a dreamer.” Ginny chastised. “She was always good friends with Harry. Always had his back when the press attacked him, making sure he got space in the quibbler should he want. Obviously I'll ask her to write an obituary that Harry would like, tasteful and ignoring the whole Voldemort thing. You can read it before it's published if you want.”   
  
Qurriell’s face burned under his touch. He pressed his hands to hurt the man who housed his parents killer, the one who’d tried to kill him for simply being born in the wrong month. As he watched Voldemort escape he felt something leave him, with a sudden clarity he recognised what had happened, what was happening. He didn't even know at the time what a Horcux was, but it seemed it didn't matter. Voldemort’s soul was part of him at the time, potentially part of Voldemort's soul was still out there. Harry was the verge of being that sorry excuse of a creature he had seen Voldemort as before he rose.   
  
“It’s just while Ginny gets your sister.” Hermione told James? He could see Albus. “Then we’ll go to see Ron.” Hermione’s eyes flicked away, in what Harry recognised as her way to get ahold of her own worry in the face of someone else's worse problem.   
  
“I'm not dead.” Harry began.   
  
“I know James,” she turned a positively quizzical face to him, matched by her curious voice.   
  
“No Herm, I'm not dead. I accidentally made what we spent a year in a tent to destroy, using Quirell. Maybe him too.”   
  
Malfoy was walking down the corridor ahead, he slipped into Murtles. Harry did not want to watch this, but he seemed to have little control. He pushed it open to catch sight of the tears, and the fear he had missed first time. Briefly Malfoy looked as though he hoped Harry would do something, though what Harry didn't know. As the sneer descended Harry wondered what would've happened if he offered an ear or a hand to help. It slipped forwards, watching in horror as he saw Malfoy bleeding and Snape saving his life. Harry stepped forwards, but he hadn't, had he? Then Snape yelled at him and it faded to nothing. Leaving Harry with his thoughts and an empty feeling.   
  
“Marry me?” Harry stared up at Ginny's face as it broke into a grin.   
  
“Of course Harry, I would be an honour. But you should never have taken Ron to get the ring, he let slip months ago that you had.”   
  
Harry chuckled as he rose and kissed Ginny. “That's Ron though isn't it?”   
  
James was staring at him, they were in St. Mungos, Ron was pacing. “I'm sure she'll be fine. It was like this with you. She's not alone, Hermione and Luna are there. She screamed me out with you, and Albus.”   
  
“Slytherin’s locket, Guant’s ring,” Hermione stated, “Harry made one too, he didn't mean to.”   
  
“When were you two planning to tell me?” Ron yelled.   
  
“I didn't know, he didn't, I believe, he seems to be able to communicate through James. Though it's not often, like it drains him.”   
  
“I keep floating.” Harry added. “I'm in and out of it. Sometimes I'm just remembering.”   
  
“Floating how?”   
  
“Dementor kiss without the sadness?”   
  
Ginny entered from the ensuite in their home, tears falling but before Harry could ask what was wrong she told him.   
  
“I'm pregnant Harry. I- I- can't do this. I'm hitting my peak, I can't afford this.” Ginny cried.   
  
“We can do this. And we're not alone, your mum, dad, all your brothers, Hermione, Luna, Neville,”   
  
“I get it, everyone will be happy to help with the saviours child, and you can work part time sometimes. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'd have to stop training, do you know how long it took to get to the level of training I'm at? It's not only going to be the months where I'm too pregnant to train, but several afterwards getting my fitness back. Some people never do.”   
  
He was falling, beside Sirius. He saw the stag canter across the lake. His vision blurred as he looked at a three hour older version of him. He tried to ignore the paradox of having his life saved by an older version of him.   
  
A tug.   
  
“Potter?”   
  
“Malfoy?”   
  
“A fine mess you got yourself in? Dark magic that is, Scorpious said he thought he saw something clinging to your eldest.”   
  
“I didn't mean to.”   
  
“You never do. You need to learn not to dabble without learning the consequences.”   
  
“I'm sorry, I really am.”   
  
“You saved my life, you are forgiven for trying to take it. And you gave me a chance to live despite my choices. It's the least I can do to help you. Do you remember what you did to get into this state?”   
  
“I made myself, possibly Voldemort, immortal. Horcrux.”   
  
“Don't go fading on me now!”   
  
Ginny was watching him kneeling beside James and Albus, who had just had their first major fight. She was smiling, Lily clinging to her arm watching her brothers with worry.   
  
“We should return home, I'm sure Grandma has some wonderful food.” Harry told his boys.   
  
“Grandma’s coming, you never said!” James exclaimed, before running up to Ginny.   
  
“Is it bad?” Albus whispered   
  
“What?” Harry asked, still kneeling beside him.   
  
“I punched him, on the nose.”   
  
Harry laughed. “You know George broke my nose in school, Ron almost got me killed countless times, and that was before we were Auror partners. We do terrible things to those we love sometimes, but they forgive when we apologise because that's what love is. James doesn't mind, he's had far worse crashes on his broom. He cares about you, if he didn't he wouldn't drive you mad, it's what siblings do, ask Ginny.”   
  
“You said you were driven mad by Malfoy before you saved each other's lives?”   
  
“That was different. You’ll understand one day.”   
  
“And you fought with Voldemort.”   
  
“He was trying to kill me, are you saying you wanted to kill your brother? Because in that case I might have to see about you going to Azkaban?”   
  
Harry watched Albus’s rage and indignation turn to understanding of the joke. “Father that's horrible! You can't threaten that!”   
  
“Father?” Harry laughed, “I thought I was always dad?”   
  
“Not when you're being mean!”   
  
Harry could not stop the laugh, that drew Ginny's attention from James trying to get Lilly to argue. James was in one of those moods.   
  
“You need to tell me who killed you.” Malfoy said, looking old now that Harry was looking at him. “I can't get the ministry to even acknowledge that you are missing.”   
  
“I don't remember.”   
  
Malfoy shook his head. “I can hardly visit Ron to ask. They'll assume I had something to do with it.”   
  
“Slytherin’s locket. Just grab Hermione and tell her that, and if she's confused add Gaunt’s ring.”   
  
“If she's confused? What are you asking me to say to her in code?”   
  
“That you've spoken to me, that I'm trusting you.”   
  
“I could have forced that out of you before killing you.”   
  
“We all know you couldn't kill. Anyway it's something from after I lost my body. Wait how am I speaking to you now?”   
  
“Try not to think about it.”   
  
He was leading Padma around the floor, watching Hermione and Krum over her shoulder when he could.   
  
Studying the map for something.   
  
On his first date with Ginny after the war.   
  
Dying in the forest, to wake with Narcissa Malfoy asking if Draco was alright. The minute nod and her declaring him dead. Being presented to Hogwarts, dead. Neville killing the Snake, the final piece or so they thought and Harry returning to the fight.   
  
Another tug.   
  
“There has to be some other way.” Hermione said.   
  
“If there is it will take time to find and we don't even know if it'll work, this will. Blood of the enemy, bone of the father and flesh of the servant. Easy enough to obtain.”   
  
“How Voldemort did it.” Harry stated.   
  
“Harry?” Hermione asked searching with her eyes in Harry's direction but clearly seeing nothing.   
  
“He has no physical form. What do you expect to see?” Malfoy sneered.   
  
“Voldemort was corporeal.”   
  
“He had broken more pieces if his soul off,” Harry argued, “and was possessing creatures to drink things he ought not to, like unicorn blood.”   
  
Lily was crying on his Lap. This was new. Ginny was explaining that the ministry was searching for Harry.   
  
“There’s no point. They won't find anything.” Harry informed.   
  
“James!”   
  
“Gin, Hermione's on it.”   
  
“What happened Harry?”   
  
“Don't remember.”   
  
Blackness, a train station, queens cross? Dumbledore. Unchanged by time since the last time.   
  
“Professor?”   
  
“You know the truth now, of course. You are protected by the same magics Voldemort was. He is truly gone because of you, but you can never move on as only he would be able to find it to destroy it.”   
  
“I'll look for it.”   
  
“And waste eternity rather than helping those in need?”   
  
Harry shrugged. He shouldn't be alive; hell, he should have died more times then he could count before he'd even married Ginny, never mind have three kids that wanted to make the world better in their own ways. “I can do both. My kids will help and they shouldn't be alive, should they?”   
  
“I suppose not.”   
  
A jerk pulled him out of the space. Harry felt his body convulse, blood pump and he rose from the ashes. His somewhat tattered Auror robes formed around him before it cleared. Malfoy stood and nodded once before disapparating. Leaving Harry alone in Godric’s hallow’s graveyard.


End file.
